1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a method and apparatus for forming folded food products in which the food products are placed in flat form upon platforms mounted upon a conveyor and where the food product is subjected to a series of folding operations before the final folded form of the food product is released from the machine. In particular, the folded food product may comprise a burrito which comprises a flour tortilla folded around a filling such as meat, beans, or cheese and which may subsequently be baked.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The present method of folding burritos is a manual folding operation which is labor intensive and involves a high degree of dexterity. At the beginning of a manual burrito folding operation, a tortilla which is a round, thin cake of corn meal or wheat flour bread is placed upon a conveyor. The tortilla or shell is advanced by the conveyor to a depositor which supplies a filling such as ground meat, beans, or cheese to the central portion of the shell. The filling can be off center with respect to the center of the shell. A first fold of the shell is then made by which the filling is covered. The shell is then subjected to the forming of second and third folds which extend substantially perpendicular to the fold line of the first fold. Next the portion of the shell adjacent the first fold line is subjected to a fourth fold which enables the exposed portions of the shell resulting from the second and third folds to be partially covered. The final fold which is again parallel to the fold line of the first fold is then made. The finished burrito is then prepared for either freezing or baking.
Typically four folding operators can produced approximately 120 burritos per minute on a single production line. The manual burrito folding operation inherently limits the production rate due to the necessity to carry out all of the folding operations by hand. Furthermore, since hand-work is involved, the quality and uniformity of the burritos being made necessarily varies.